Blockbuster to close remaining 300 movie-rental stores

Chain's last remaining Boulder County store is in Longmont

Blockbuster's retail movie-rental business is going dark, and the chain's Longmont location -- the sole Blockbuster in Boulder County -- is expected to close by early next year.

Blockbuster LLC is exiting its retail and mail DVD distribution businesses and plans to close its remaining 300 retail stores and distribution centers in the United States by January, officials for parent company DISH Network Corp. announced Wednesday.

The Blockbuster By Mail service is expected to end in mid-December, DISH officials said.

Blockbuster's licensing rights and video library will remain with DISH.

"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," Joseph P. Clayton, DISH president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Despite our closing of the physical distribution elements of the business, we continue to see value in the Blockbuster brand, and we expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings."

Those digital products include Blockbuster @Home for DISH customers and Blockbuster On Demand for the general market, officials said.

Wednesday's announcement comes after a years-long shedding of Blockbuster stores. In recent years, the brick-and-mortar video rental industry has grown increasingly beleaguered as consumers turned to DVD and Blu-ray kiosks and online streaming providers such as Netflix.

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DISH, which acquired the bankrupt Blockbuster in 2011, closed 350 stores during the first half of the year and then shuttered another 100 -- including a 16-year-old location in Boulder -- in the third quarter.

Blockbuster's last remaining store in Boulder County is located at 1751 Hover St. in Longmont.

The closing of Blockbuster early in the coming year will mean only one brick-and-mortar video store left in Longmont: Showtime Video at 1716 Main St.

Brent Nolan, general manager of the Showtime in Longmont and two in Loveland, said he feels bad for the Blockbuster employees who are losing their jobs. Some of Nolan's current employees worked for other Blockbuster stores that closed in recent years.

But Nolan said the announcement didn't surprise him, and he thinks there are a few reasons why Showtime is managing to stay in business, despite ever-increasing competition from Netflix, Redbox, online streaming and cable TV's movies on demand.

Showtime keeps prices low, he said, and his company tends to get most new movies in their stores in advance of the competition -- sometimes months in advance.

"Plus, I think people still like to come in and browse in a store," Nolan said. "I honestly think that's one of the reasons we're still around. People like to walk in and have someone smile at them and help them find what they're looking for."

Longmont Times-Call Business Writer Tony Kindelspire contributed to this report.

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